The employment of restraints for children riding in vehicles has become mandatory throughout the United States. Among the types of restraints available are infant carrier/car seats, which have been designed for transporting infants from birth up to approximately one year of age. Infant carrier/car seats are required to be installed only in the rear seat of a vehicle and include a harness having shoulder straps that are engaged through the rear of the safety seat back and a chest clip for gathering and positioning the shoulder straps. The harness additionally includes lap straps and a center crotch buckle.
Further child restraints have been categorized as convertible car seats, which are employed in both rear-facing and forward-facing positions for children exceeding certain weights, but who are within the weight, height, or age requirements for mandatory usage of child restraints.
A third category of child restraints are booster seats, which elevate a child to a level for use of a conventional seat belt and shoulder restraint. Booster seats are available with a unitary seat and back as well as with a seat bottom only.
As used hereinafter, the term “safety seat” shall be interpreted as to include all of the foregoing child restraints.
Virtually all safety seats include cushions covering child contact surfaces, e.g., the back-, bottom-, and inwardly-facing contoured sides of the seat, so as to provide comfort and a harness having three- or five-point anchor contacts with the seat frame. Openings are formed in the seat cushions through which the harness webbing passes at each of the three or five contact points, as well as additional sets of openings for the seat back contact points to enable adjustment of the shoulder webbing portions of the harness.
Children using safety seats are prone to soiling the seat cushions, often because of spilling or dripping liquid or due to diaper leakage. While some cushions include a liquid-impervious outer layer, so that they may be wiped, such cushions are generally uncomfortable for children, since the cushion's contact surface does not allow air or liquids to pass through. Further, since the spilled liquids are not absorbed in the cushion, they tend to migrate beyond the cushion, wetting the child's clothing, as well as the safety seat frame and the vehicle upholstery.
Additionally, the removal of soiled cushions for washing proved to be a difficult and time consuming task.
Previous attempts to provide linings for safety seats have been rather complex to install and to remove and are not designed to be used with shoulder straps that protrude from the safety seat at non-traditional locations. Additionally, the complexity of prior linings has made disposal of the linings after a soiling impractical.
For example, the seat cover disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,926,359, facilitates installation and removal of the lining from a safety seat having shoulder straps that coordinate with one of three side slots. Removal requires removing each strap from one of the side slots. Further, the cover is not readily disposable, due to cost considerations.
Likewise the infant car seat liner disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,883,701 utilizes side slots for installing and removing the liner around shoulder straps. Again, the shoulder straps of the safety seat must coordinate with these side slots for the liner to fit properly on the safety seat. Further, the entire seat liner must be disposed of in the event of a soiling.
The disposable seat liner disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,885,200, like the covers and liners described in the aforementioned patents, uses side slots for installing and removing the liner around the shoulder straps, which limits the should-strap configurations with which the liner will fit properly. Also, the entire liner must be disposed in the event of a soiling.